Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [46]
"It felt like making love to the dead. She was underneath me, her eyes were shut, her legs apart, her jaws locked tightly, as if she were going through torture ... But she wouldn't let me go. She cried, 'You must finish me!' In the meantime she wouldn't stop talking and reciting Mao quotations. She yelled at me, 'Prove that you are not a coward, admit that you are evil seduced. Show your shame, take out your sun instrument and look at it, spit on it...' Oh, these terrible words! I can't get them out of my ears! I thought I was mad to hear that. I am sorry, Maple, I shouldn't put you through this..."
"Go on, please. I need to know."
"She said it was her turn. She must toss herself in the pit of shame. She must see for herself how grotesque coupling was. She pulled over a mirror and demanded that I look at myself while taking her. The ugly members of our bodies. She said, 'Don't you think they are the most disgusting organs? One is like a worm and the other like a bee's nest! One should be cut and the other scorched!' She made me hate my body. I really did at that moment. I could have thrown up. She said it was the right feeling. The disgust. Keep looking. I can still see her shouting in front of my eyes. 'What are these? Animals! Animals!'
"I was completely impotent ... I begged her to quit, but she said that we must fix the problem. It was only sex that blocked my eyes to see my own potential as a great Maoist. She said I could be fixed if I let her help. She said, 'You must get erect. I must go through this in order to get it out of your system. We must do this so there will be no myth between our bodies.' I tried to explain but she refused to listen. She pushed herself onto me, all over, and my body started to betray me and then ... suddenly"—Evergreen paused to catch his breath, his shoulders trembled, and his face turned paper white—"I saw blood."
18
I couldn't sleep. I felt that I owed Wild Ginger an explanation. I had become clear about my feelings toward Evergreen. After our talk Evergreen wrote me a letter. "To me, Maple, love is more important than Maoism."
After contemplation, I wrote back. I accepted his proposal of engagement, however with one condition: I would not further my relationship with him before I made peace with Wild Ginger. Wild Ginger was too important to my life. And I was determined to keep her friendship.
It was two o'clock in the morning. My mind had been racing. Finally I got up and sneaked out of the house. I wandered around the streets and then found myself at Wild Ginger's door. Her light was on. I stood, trying to figure out whether or not to knock. Suddenly the door opened. Wild Ginger in her uniform stood in front of me.
"I don't intend to spit on you but I might not be able to help myself," she said. "Go away, Maple."
"Wild Ginger," I uttered weakly. "I need a chance."
"Go away before I pick up a gun and shoot you in the head."
"Please, Wild Ginger, I'll do what you ask, anything."
She laughed. "Anything? Who are you fooling? Don't say it if you don't mean it!"
"I mean it."
"What about giving up Evergreen? Now tell me that you mean it!"
I lowered my head.
"How blind I was to trust you ... How I hate myself!"
"Please, Wild Ginger, I am..." It was as if my mouth were not mine. I tried to drag more words out of it but my thoughts scattered. I watched Wild Ginger talk but I couldn't hear her. I saw her mouthing "I hate myself." Suddenly my mind was stirred by the image of years ago in which she stabbed her hand with a sharpened pencil.
I began to feel that I could never truly love Evergreen, that the relationship between Evergreen and me would never work because it would always be haunted. It was doomed right from the beginning—I loved Wild Ginger so much that her suffering over Evergreen was my curse.
She pushed me out and slammed the door.
I stood there, unable to think.
I can't remember